


Negotiating the Spot

by shiphitsthefan



Series: Necessities [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Aftercare, Alternate Season/Series 09, Angst, BDSM, Bottom Dean, Castiel in the Bunker, Coming Untouched, Dom Castiel, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, Fluff, From Sex to Love, Humor, M/M, Men of Letters Bunker, Porn with Feelings, Post-Coital Cuddling, Rimming, Sub Dean, Top Castiel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-06
Updated: 2015-05-06
Packaged: 2018-03-29 09:03:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3890449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shiphitsthefan/pseuds/shiphitsthefan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"They lie there in a comfortable silence for a while, Dean on his back with his eyes closed and Cas on his side curled around him.  Eventually, Cas’ back starts to hurt, and his arm starts going numb beneath the pillow, squashed by the weight of his head and the odd angle.  This is becoming a common problem when they cuddle after sex, and Cas doesn’t understand why."</p><p>The wet spot on the bed often poses a problem once the afterglow subsides, but rarely does it offer solutions.</p><p>A prequel to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/4180185">Under Honor; Honor-Bound; Until the Stars</a>, but can easily be read as a stand-alone fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Negotiating the Spot

**Author's Note:**

> [aerialiste](http://archiveofourown.org/users/aerialiste) accidentally prompted me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/jsalowe/status/594007700662394880): "no but asking the important questions tonight like which half of yr OTP will courageously sleep in the wet spot"
> 
> This started life as a funny little ficlet of less than a thousand words, believe it or not. I had every intention of writing a punishment sequel to [All You Need](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3494357) first, but this story really wanted to be written. It didn't just move in to my brainspace, it set up a pushcart and started selling daisies.
> 
> Regardless, it just goes to show that nothing you say to me or in my immediate vicinity is safe. Anything can and will be used as a fic prompt.
> 
> Betaed by my beautiful bestie [betty days](http://archiveofourown.org/users/sadrobots/pseuds/betty%20days). Thank you for putting up with me during the editing process when I inevitably turn into a stubborn brat.
> 
> Please do not repost/copy/duplicate this work to other sites. That's called theft.

Dean groans in frustration, eyes closed as he rubs his cheek against the sheet.  He flexes his hands behind his back and feels Cas’ grip on his forearms tighten in response.

“Something you wanted?” Cas grumbles behind him.

“Just feelin’ a little neglected down here,” says Dean.  “I mean if you’re gonna take your time…”  He glances back at Cas with a raised eyebrow and a smirk.

Cas raises an eyebrow of his own in response, but his face stays expressionless.  It sends a shiver down Dean’s spine; he has no idea how Cas keeps up the stoic act in the middle of sex.  He makes himself ignore the urge to let Cas win, to let him take the lead, and wills himself to stay aggravated and impatient.

This had began as a wrestling match down in the gym, a match Dean may have lost on purpose because he wanted to just jump to the adrenaline-fueled fucking.  Any other time, he’d have been on his back, or else all fours, and Cas would have pounded into him like the hammer Dean once accused him of being.

Instead, Dean has an ache in his neck, a burn in his shoulders, and a cock begging to be touched.

He had been all on board, at first; Cas had started getting inquisitive regarding sex, and tonight, that had meant Dean getting pushed face-first down into the mattress and told to hold his cheeks apart.

“I’ve been doing a little research,” Cas had said, taking time to pick up and fold the clothes they’d torn off each other.

“What about?” asked Dean, trying his damnedest not to squirm, whether more from impatience or from the feeling of exposure, he wasn’t sure.  “How to drive me nuts?”

“Maybe.”

“Or did you discover some new kink for house cleaning?”

Cas chuckled but finished stacking their clothes, nice and neat, on Dean’s desk.  He settled in behind Dean on the bed.  “If you were careful as opposed to speeding headlong into everything—”

“ _You_ pushed _me_ onto the bed,” Dean said indignantly as he let Cas pull his hips up, removing his hands from his ass to support himself.

“Because you were rushing me,” Cas replied.  “And I didn’t ask you to move your hands.”

“But I thought—”

“Stop thinking, then.”  Cas maneuvered Dean’s hands back so that he was spreading himself open again.  “Now, have you ever heard of something called ‘rimming’?”

And Dean had said something along the line of _oh fuck yes_ and then dissolved into a complex series of low moans and swearing as Cas licked him open.  Cas had taken his time doing that, then taken his time fingering Dean open further (“Can’t be too careful, Dean, and you seem to be enjoying yourself.”)

Now Cas is _still taking his goddamn time_ , thrusting in and out so slowly that Dean’s certain he’s going to lose his mind.  He cannot remember the last time he’s been this close for this long without a single touch to his dick.  He’s pretty sure the answer is _never_.

“Come _on_ ,” Dean whines, making a weak attempt at pushing his ass back to encourage Cas to speed up.  “Fuck me like you fucking mean it!”

Cas growls and leans over Dean’s back, pushing him farther into the mattress.  “Then you better _come_ like you mean it.”  He releases Dean’s arms and drags his fingers down to his hips.  Cas spends a few seconds stroking the skin before gripping hard and then he’s snapping his hips back and forth, taking the tempo from zero to sixty.  Dean’s so shocked, he doesn’t notice he’s free and leaves his arms where they are.

Dean distantly realizes that he’s cursing and begging and _loud as fuck,_ but he’s so suddenly overwhelmed that all he can focus on is the ruthless in and out, the drag of Castiel’s cock on his prostate, the ten sharp pricks of Castiel’s nails into his pelvis.  The warmth that had pooled slowly in his groin is a wildfire, and Dean is burning with it.  His whole world is composed of consummate need.

“Is this fast enough for you, Dean?” he hears Castiel ask from a million miles away, and Dean has no fucking _clue_ how his voice sounds so steady when he’s working so hard.  “Is it hard enough for you?  Do you think I mean it yet?”

“ _Yes,_ ” Dean manages, his mouth dry and his throat raw.

“I try to be good to you,” Castiel continues.   “I worship your body, Dean Winchester, and you have the nerve to tell me to hurry up the prayer?”

Dean feels the familiar loose coil of guilt start to knot in his stomach.  “I di—”  He takes in a stuttering breath.  It’s disorienting, being so aroused concurrent with unexpected regret.  “I didn’t mean—”

“Of course you ‘didn’t mean.’  You never let sex mean anything, do you?”  

Dean gasps as Castiel digs his fingers harder into his hips.  

“You’re too scared to let it mean something, aren’t you?” Cas asks.

“No,” Dean says, trying to shake his head but only succeeding in shifting it up and down and on the mattress.

“Yes, you are,” Castiel tells him.  “If _it_ means something, then _you_ mean something.  And you never mean to mean anything.”

Dean quivers, and it has nothing to do with the edge he’s rapidly approaching.  His eyes slam shut and he feels seasick—from the swift and unexpected change in pace, from the nausea that churns in his gut, from the sensation of having his head trapped between twin conch shells, hearing nothing but the drag and clash of waves in a storm.  Dean feels an overwhelming darkness bubbling up inside him like an ooze.  It’s like he’s letting Castiel down again, like he always does, like he can’t stop doing.

He never means to hurt.

He never means to leave.

He never means to lie.

Oh, God, _he never means anything._

“Dean?”  Cas’ voice reaches him, bobbing, lost at sea.  Dean clings to it like a raft, lets it carry him back from the edge of the world he’d almost dropped off of.  “Dean?” Castiel calls, closer now, his voice a strong arm through the spray of the surf reaching out to save him, undeserving as he is.

“I’m so— _oh, fuck_ —sorry,” and he is, he’s never been sorrier in his whole life, to waste such a gift, to disappoint Castiel.

He feels Cas slow down again, feels him run a soothing hand between his shoulder blades.  “I’m not disappointed, _shhh,_ I’m not disappointed.  I just want you to let me make you feel good.  Isn’t that what you want, Dean?  Release from yourself?  Isn’t that why you always let me win when we spar?”

Dean nods frantically, desperate for approval.  He fucked up, but he can be good, he can, he _can._

“Of course you can,” Cas says soothingly, “Of course you are good.  You’re wonderful, Dean.”

“‘m not.”  Dean chokes on the words as they scrabble their way out.  “Didn’t want it to mean, didn’t want you to mean,” he tries to explain through the seaweed and the sand.  “But you do mean.  It means.  I mean.”

Cas stills, and all of Dean’ cracks he was holding together fall apart at once.

_“Don’t stop don’t stop I’m sorry don’t stop—”_

“Are you certain?”

 _“Please,”_ Dean begs as the knot tightens in his stomach.  “Need this, need you.”

He’s remotely aware of Cas reestablishing a rhythm, but is surprised when his hands end up on either side of his head.  Cas twines their fingers together, covering Dean with his body, and starts to gradually pick up the pace.

They aren’t fucking anymore.  It’s sex, but it isn’t.  Dean hesitates to put a name to it, because there’s no spot for those words in his bed.  He’s never allowed them room.

“You’re good, Dean,” Cas reassures him.  He kisses his way across Dean’s back, tightens the net of their fingers.

Dean feels himself drifting back toward the water, but it’s okay; he’s tethered now.

“You mean everything to me.  Did you know that?  This,” Cas says, squeezing Dean’s hands once, quickly, “this is _everything._  You are everything, and you are good, and I only want you to let me show you how much you _do_ mean.”

Dean tastes saltwater on his tongue.  He never even noticed he was crying.

“Tell me, Dean.  Do you want your release?”

He’d forgotten he was wanting, but the sudden reminder has him frantic, mindless with desire.  “Please, please, _please._ ”

“Then let go for me,” Castiel whispers.

Dean finally does, and the world fades away beneath the waves.

* * *

Cas likes the sex, but he _loves_ the aftermath.  He likes feeling Dean clench around him as he shudders through his orgasm, and Cas likes how it completes him, too, but he _loves_ easing out and watching his cum leak out and pool onto the bed.  He loves watching Dean collapse into a boneless puddle, loves wiping him down and cleaning him up, loves helping him drink and seeing him smile and running his fingers through his hair as they lie lazily together, arms and legs tangled.

Cas loves taking care of Dean, and this is the only time he lets him.

He absentmindedly pets at the bruises left on Dean’s hips and listens to Dean’s little contented hum.  Cas nuzzles the back of his neck with his nose, apparently tickling him with his breath.  Dean flips over onto his back and moves Cas’ hand to his stomach.  Cas obliges and rubs his tummy, because Cas loves this, too, when Dean is too relaxed and sated and sleepy to remember he shouldn’t ask for what he wants.  Being allowed to touch Dean is Cas’ favorite gift.

“Fucking awesome, man,” Dean mumbles, arching into Cas’ palm.

“The sex, or this?”

Dean grins.  “Both.”

They lie there in a comfortable silence for a while, Dean on his back with his eyes closed and Cas on his side curled around him.  Eventually, Cas’ back starts to hurt, and his arm starts going numb beneath the pillow, squashed by the weight of his head and the odd angle.  He feels the tell-tale wobble of the mattress as the edge of the bed gives with the shifting of his body.  This is becoming a common problem when they cuddle after sex, and Cas doesn’t understand why.  There’s an entire bed at their disposal, yet Dean insists on crowding Cas over until he’s hanging on the edge like a poorly-constructed gargoyle.

“Dean?”

“Mmhmm?” Dean mumbles, turning his face toward Cas but keeping his eyes shut.  He’s so sweetly content that Cas nearly holds his tongue, but the pins and needles shooting up his arm and the floor looming behind him push him on.

“You are aware that this is a queen-size bed.”

Dean flops an arm above his head to run a hand through his hair.  “Yeah.”

“That means we have approximately forty-eight hundred square inches in which to lie.”

“Sure.”

“Why, then,” Cas asks, “am I always having to balance on the edge of the mattress?”

Dean stops playing with his hair and throws his arm haphazardly over Cas.  “Thought you liked the post-party cuddle,” he says with a slight frown.

“I enjoy holding you very much, Dean.”  Cas pets along Dean’s jaw, reveling in how Dean pushes himself into his fingers no matter where he touches.  He’s so trusting like this, so open when he lets his walls fall down and makes Cas’ arms his stabilization instead.  “I just don’t understand why I can’t enjoy holding you somewhere closer to the middle of the bed."

Dean tenses slightly and pops an eye open.  “Dude,” he says accusingly.  “Wet spot.  I’m not going to lie in that.”  He seems almost insulted as he closes his eye again.  “‘S gross.”

“Why?  It was a part of you.”

“ _Was_ being the key word there,” says Dean.  Cas watches his eyes roll beneath their lids.

“It’s only sperm.”

“It’s _moist._ ”

Cas wrinkles his nose in genuine confusion.  "You swallow it when I come in your mouth, and that doesn't bother you.  We don't use condoms, so you feel it inside you when I come in your ass, and _that_ doesn't bother you.  You've even asked me to come _on_ you before, so I don't see why lying on a relatively-small spot of ejaculate _does_ bother you."

Dean sighs and opens his eyes to properly join the conversation.  He shares a short staring match with Cas before saying, “Well, it’s different when you come on me.”

“Why?”

“Because you wipe it off after.  Everything’s clean again.”  Dean readjusts himself, propping himself up on his forearms.

Cas maintains a death-grip on the sheet in an attempt to remain on the bed.  “But I wiped off the sheet.”

“And the sheet stays damp for a while.”

“We could put a towel over it,” Cas suggests.

“Yeah,” says Dean, “but then there'll be a towel there, and then you can't help but think about what's underneath, and then after a few minutes you start convincing yourself that you can kinda-sorta still feel the wet spot, and then you're just back to square one."

"You may recall my mentioning that we have forty-eight hundred of those, many of which are currently going unused."

“Aw, come on, Cas.”  Dean makes a noise of disgust and plops his head back down on the pillow.  “Let it go.”

Cas’ eyes widen.  “If I do, I’ll immediately land in the floor.”

“Stop exaggerating,” Dean says as he turns on his side to face the wall.  “You’re fine.”

“I’m _teetering,_ Dean.”

“And I’m not budging.”

Cas puts his arm across Dean and clutches at the sheet there, too.  “I regret not fixing your astonishingly selective phobia of bodily fluids when I remade you," he says through clenched teeth.

“You had your chance,” Dean says, pushing idly at Cas’ arm.  “No one to blame but yourself.”

They lie in an uncomfortable silence until Dean falls asleep, because Cas does.

* * *

A half-hour passes, and Cas remains wide awake, lying at odd angles, an open bracket to a quote he can’t read.  He’s been human for a few months now, but the off-switch to his brain remains missing.  It never matters how tired he is; his thoughts are perpetually at the ready to run a mental derby.

Regarding his emotions, they never stop cycling.  There’s never a reprieve.  He can’t comprehend how it doesn’t drive people mad, always feeling.  It’s exhausting, and there seems to be little reward for the overall effort.  And then, when he lies down to rest at last, he starts _thinking_ about his feelings.  His cerebrum hates him as much as his frontal lobe, because apparently Cas doesn’t have enough war in his life; now his body has to battle him, as well.

Cas glares at the shadows cast on the wall from the lamp on the stand beside him.  He’s angry with himself for breaking Dean’s post-coital peace.  He’s sad, because he can’t study Dean’s face.  It’s what he does most nights they end up here, in Dean’s room, in Dean’s bed, after all.  Cas sleeps so restlessly now that he watches Dean until he can’t fight his eyelids any longer.  The act is comforting.  Familiar.  Dean doesn’t tell him it’s creepy anymore.

Mostly, though, Cas is afraid that he’s going to fall into the floor.  If he could just change positions, shift over another inch or two—  Change!  Of course!

“We could change the sheets?” he says hopefully, shaking Dean to wakefulness—as much as he dares to shake, at least.

“Oh my God,” Dean grumbles as he enters consciousness, “we could _go to sleep.”_

"It'll only take a minute, Dean,” Cas says decisively.  “You'll need to get up."  He certainly isn’t moving first.

“Fine,” snaps Dean.  “ _Fine._  I'm scooting over.  Now you have room, and I have a cold, wet, unhappy hip."

“I appreciate your hip’s sacrifice,” Cas mutters quietly.  He moves over on the bed, grateful for the room, but now his arms are empty.  Now Dean doesn’t want to be caressed or appreciated.  Dean wants space, and it’s what Cas wanted, too, but not like this.

The silence is so suffocating that Cas is drowning in it.

“I’ve made you uncomfortable,” he finally says.  When Dean fails to respond, Cas adds, “And also angry.”

“Well, _yeah,_ Cas,” says Dean, looking at him over his shoulder, telling him like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.  “You don't just ask someone to sleep in the goddamn wet spot.  It's rude."

Cas feels oddly sick to his stomach.  “I wasn’t aware.”

Dean huffs and settles into the pillow.

"I'm sorry, Dean.  I only wanted to hold you without fearing gravitational pull."

"You make it sound like you were going to fall from the top of a fucking skyscraper,” Dean replies.  “Like inevitable death awaited you in the floor."

Cas scoots closer to Dean and rolls him over onto his stomach and out of the spot.

“What are you _doing?”_ Dean hisses.  He rolls back over onto his back, now firmly on his side of the bed.

“I’m pushing you over so I can lie in the wet spot.”

“Jesus,” says Dean, “I don't even care anymore.  Afterglow's gone; you did a bang-up job ruining that.  I just want to sleep, okay?  Slept in worse, that's for sure."

Cas swallows and tries to find an interesting spot on the ceiling to focus on.  The wet spot is unpleasant, but not nearly as terrible as the edge of the bed.  He feels tears building up in the corners of his eyes, and he tries to blink them back; his lip trembles, and Cas’ fingers fly to it to make it stop.

The only thing Cas likes about being human is his time here with Dean.  He hates the emotions he can’t control, and the urge to piss at inopportune times, and the rumble of his belly when he’s hungry.  Cas hates being tired when he doesn’t want to be.  He hates being weaker than he was.  He hates that he can’t figure out if breathing is supposed to be an autonomic response or not because sometimes he notices that he is and then he’s aware of when he does and doesn’t, has to keep track of it.  In and out and in and out and it’s confusing.   _Everything_ is confusing, and he hates it, he hates it—

“I hate it,” he blurts out into the silence.

Dean barks out a laugh.  “Nobody _likes_ the wet spot.”

“I mean the idea of falling,” Cas says, wiping his cheeks quickly.

“It’s like a foot to the floor.”

“From any height.”  Cas chokes back an unreasonable sob.   _In.  Autonomic.  Out.  Somatic.  In.  Sympathetic.  Out.  Afferent.  In.  Parasympathetic.  Out.  Efferent._  “I puzzled your lungs from pieces.  I gave you breath once, and now I can’t find mine.  And it’s so stupid,” he continues, babbling and listening helplessly as the words tumble out, “so stupid, being on edge, being on _the_ edge, _an_ edge, _any_ edge.  The Lord is with me, and I know no fear, but the Lord is gone, and I am sore afraid.”

Dean turns over, and he’s on edge, too.  “Cas?”

“It’s just a bed, and it’s just a floor, but that precarious feeling, Dean,” says Cas, turning bright-eyed to stare at Dean.  “It’s just a floor I’ll fall into, but that’s just it.  I’ll fall, and there’s nothing to stop me.  I don’t have wings.  Not anymore.”

Dean bites his lip and runs a thumb under each of Cas’ eyes.   _One.  Two.  In.  Out.  Excitatory.  Inhibitory._

“And it’s difficult to sleep anyway, because it’s so strange, letting go of life and not knowing if it will still be there when I wake up, and then I _do_ wake up, and there’s the edge, and I’m falling, and I’ve fallen, Dean, I _fell—_ ”

Castles are supposed to be imposing, but Dean is inviting as the drawbridge falls between them and the moat is forgotten.  Cas feels Dean put the curtain walls up around them, and he knows they’re strong because he built them from the ground up.  He buries his head in the parapet walk and this is sturdy, too, because he remembers making each brick.  Cas hears a drum within the keep, and lets it lull him to calm, because he taught it how to beat.

“Shit,” Dean says once Cas stops shaking, “I thought you were just being an asshole about the wet spot.  I didn't know there was actual existential crisis going on here."

"If I was still me, we wouldn't even be worried about damp sheets,” says Cas with a laugh that doesn’t reach his eyes.  “I would have fixed it up with my 'mojo'."

“Yeah, well, come on.”  Dean releases Cas and pushes himself out of bed, wandering over to the dresser and rifling through a drawer.

“Where are we going?” Cas asks as Dean tosses a pair of plaid flannel pajama pants at him.

Dean smiles.  “We’re gonna fix you up with some human mojo.”

* * *

Cas settles back into the sofa, hugging his knees to his chest and looking around the family room while he waits for Dean to come back.  It used to be a bedroom, but after Cas moved in and Sam was finally starting to heal from the trials, Dean and Kevin had decided the bunker needed more of a homey feel.  They’d gone out thrifting with Charlie and brought back a jumble of mismatched furniture, including the couch he was sitting on, an overstuffed armchair upholstered in a garish plush purple fabric, a few beanbags, and entirely too many throw pillows.  The shelves on the wall were filled with puzzles and board games, because Kevin and Charlie said that was the sort of things family rooms had, whether they were used or not.  There’s a television and an Xbox on the desk, both of which see frequent use with Cas stuck in the bunker.

He’s distracted, now that he can think in thoughts instead of metaphors, remembering the construction of the room, remembering the way Dean had told him, “This is your home now, and I want it to feel like one,” and he jumps when Dean tucks an afghan around him.

“Sorry,” Dean says, making sure every inch of Cas is covered in crochet.  “Didn’t mean to startle you.  It was still hanging on the line.”  The afghan is blue and bronze, because Charlie insisted that he was a Ravenclaw.  She’d played Sorting Hat and made one for everyone.  He smiles a little at the memory of Dean’s reluctant acceptance of his, all yellow and black yarn.  “Looks like a bee,” he’d grumbled, and Cas had laughed for the first time since he fell.

“I’m sorry, too,” says Cas, dragging himself out of his reverie and looking up at Dean.  “I was upset by a normal byproduct of sexual relations.”

“No, you weren’t.”  Dean sits down next to him and puts a hand on one of his feet.  “You were upset because you felt out of control and didn’t know how to tell me.”

“Regardless, I feel very embarrassed.  I’m very ashamed.”

“It’s no big,” Dean insists.  “You don’t know what’s gonna set you off.  I’m not upset.”

Cas looks back down at the blanket.  “You were.”  His thoughts whirl again, a kaleidoscope he’s uncertain he’ll ever get used to sifting through and searching for meaning in.   _Bronze, blue.  Wit, Wisdom.  The third thing that’s yours._  He wiggles a finger through a stitch.   _The second._

Dean puts a finger beneath Cas’ chin and gently lifts his face back up.  Cas stares at him.   _The first._

“I thought you were being a douchebag.  I didn’t understand what was going on.”  Dean sighs, his smile turning sad.  “You gotta talk to me about this kind of stuff, Cas.”

"You hate conversations regarding human emotion, Dean."

“Yeah, well…”  Dean glances away for a moment before looking back, holding the side of Cas’ face in his hand.

Cas becomes instantly aware of his own stubble.   _Follicles.  Stimulation thereof.  Stimulation of other.  Growth.  Renewal._

“I hate seeing you hurt more than I hate talking about feelings,” Dean says.  “So feelings discussion is officially on the table, okay?"

"Then I feel powerless,” admits Cas.  “I'm completely out of control of my life.  I can't leave the bunker because the whole host of heaven is out for my blood.  I can’t help Sam physically heal any faster.  I read and walk and think in real time.  I have a body, and it’s mine, but it isn’t, because it’s too small.”  He takes a deep breath before continuing.  “The only time I ever feel like I’m still me is when I’m with you, whether we’re fighting or we’re fucking because you give me power, Dean.  You give me your soul to hold in my hands, and it’s like the beginning all over again.”

Dean’s mouth hangs open.  His eyes blink rapidly.  He looks at Cas as if he’s seeing him for the first time.

“You let me break you and put you back together,” says Cas, “and I don’t feel broken anymore.”

“We’ll fix it,” Dean says, quiet, firm.  “We’ll fix it, and when it’s fixed, when all those dicks are taken care of, we’re gonna leave the bunker and go anywhere you fucking want to go.  I know that doesn’t fix the cabin fever or really any of the problem now, but it gives you something to plan for.  Something to _hope_ for.”

Cas nods.  “That sounds nice, Dean.”

“And I’ll ask you about stuff more often, y’know, like what you want.  I tend to assume we’re on the same page, and I, uh.”  Dean looks away again, exhales all at once.  “I shouldn’t do that.  I don’t know what I’m doing.”  He grabs Cas’ hands through the blanket and meets his eyes again.  “But we’ll figure it out together.”

“Make it up as we go?” Cas asks with a tiny smile.

Dean laughs.  “Yeah, guess we’re still doing that, huh?”  He squeezes Cas’ hands.  “You gonna be okay if I go to the kitchen?  I thought hot chocolate might be good with the movie.  Maybe, um.  Maybe popcorn, too.”

A faint blush starts up the sides of Dean’s face, and Cas can’t figure out why, so he simply nods.

Cas watches him as he walks out the door, and wonders which will prove harder to figure out in the end—humanity, or Dean Winchester.

* * *

Dean has a Dutch oven with oil and a few popcorn kernels on one stove eye, a saucepan with milk on another, and entirely too much on his mind when Sam stumbles into the kitchen.

“What are you doing up this late?” Dean asks him without taking his eyes off the milk.

Sam scratches his chest through his thermal and opens a cabinet.  “Couldn’t get back to sleep, and then I got thirsty,” he says as he grabs a glass.

“What woke you up?”

Sam chuckles and stops midway through opening the fridge.  “I don’t think I can recreate the disturbance perfectly,” he begins, “but there was a lot of ‘fuck’ and ‘Cas’ and ‘please’ involved.”

Dean winces.  “Shit.  Sorry, Sam.”

Sam shrugs and says, “Not the first time you’ve woken me up having sex.  At least we aren’t sharing a room.”  He fills his glass with orange juice.  “Although you guys might want to learn how to be quiet before Kevin gets back from Jody’s.”

“Yeah, how is he, anyway?”

“Good,” Sam says after he swallows.  “He’s got Linda settled in.  Now he’s just hanging out with Krissy and her crew and taking a break from caring for the infirm,” he says, pointing at himself.

“Man, Jody’s got her hands full,” Dean muses as he rips open a packet of instant hot chocolate mix and pours it in a mug.  “She opening a halfway house for wayward hunters?”

“More like an academy.”  Sam takes another long drink.  “It's like hunters' Hogwarts up there.  So what are you doing up?  Usually I don’t hear from you and Cas for at least three hours after he screws your brains out.”  He does a double-take at the stove.  “Oh, you’re making hot chocolate.  What did you do, Dean?”

“Y’know,” Dean says with a pointed look as he opens another packet, “I don’t _only_ make hot chocolate when I screw up.”

“Just my experience.  Seriously th—”  Sam’s words dissolve into a cough.

Dean closes his eyes and breathes deeply.  Sam asked him not to make a fuss, so he’s not going to.

“Ugh, gross,” says Sam after clearing his throat.  “Seriously though, what happened?  Cas okay?”

“I honestly don’t know,” Dean admits.  He pours the milk into the mugs, puts a spoon in each, then stirs them in tandem.  “Like, he always ends up on the edge of the bed, right?”

“Wet spot?”

“Yeah.  And usually he doesn’t say anything, but tonight he was all, ‘Why can’t you scoot over, Dean?  What is the cultural significance of the wet spot, Dean?’”

“I really doubt he used robot arms,” says Sam, wiping a bit of slung hot chocolate off of his cheek and licking it off his thumb.

“Anyway, I got pissed off, because dammit, I’m finally the one taking it, so it’s my turn to not sleep in the fucking spot.  It’s etiquette, man, and I was all glowy and not thinking straight and—”

“You got prissy?”

Dean rolls his eyes while he puts saucers over the mugs to keep the chocolate warm.  “Maybe a little, but it turned out to not really be my fault because he started off silently freaking out about falling off the bed and it turned into an ‘oh shit, I’m human’ all-out panic.”

“Well,” Sam says, watching the juice in his glass as he swirls it, “that’s got to be quite the mindfuck, going from all-powerful-being to germs-can-hurt-me.  He’s—oil’s ready, Dean, your test corn popped.”

“Thanks,” says Dean, grabbing the bag of kernels.

“He’s been slowly figuring out that he’s never been in control, anyway,” Sam continues.  “I mean there was all that shit with Naomi, and before that it was Hallucifer, and before _that_ he was on a power trip from Purgatory.  The only time he’s had control over things, he plunged heaven into a civil war.  He did okay the first time he fell, because we were all together.  But he was still an angel.  Now we’re all together, but he’s just one of us.  He feels purposeless.  He’s not special anymore.”

Dean frowns.  “He’s special to me.”

“And to me, though not in the same way, of course.  But _he_ doesn’t think he is, and his opinion is the one that counts.”

Dean stares at the Dutch oven.  “I have no idea how to help him.  I have nothing to give him.”

They stand in silence for a few minutes, listening to the kernels begin to pop, before Sam says, “There’s you.”

“How do you mean?”

“I mean,” says Sam, pulling on Dean’s arm until they face each other, “that you guys already have this power game you play.  And don’t try to deny it, because, one, I hear you two all the time, and two, you have a nice set of fingerprints on each arm.”

Dean holds up his hands in defeat.

“I also know that you really enjoy being manhandled in the bedroom.  I remember you coming back from the Amazon.”

“We agreed never to talk about that again,” Dean says with a scowl.

“‘She threw me around like a pillow at a slumber party.  I’ve never been so turned on in my whole life.’”

“Dude, my voice hasn’t been that high pitched since I was eight years old.”

Sam rolls his eyes.  “The point I’m trying to make is that he needs control, and you like giving it up.”  Sam finishes his juice and reaches over to set his glass in the sink.  “Maybe you two ought to explore that.”

Dean nods slowly.  “You might be on to something there, Sam.”

“Just give me a heads-up before you do,” Sam says as he pushes himself away from the counter.  “The sounds of whips do nothing for me.”

“Do I even want to know how my little brother figured that out?”

Sam laughs and claps him on the shoulder.  “Probably not.”

* * *

They’re about half an hour into _The First Avenger_ when Cas finally pipes up.

“This is good mojo,” he says before taking another sip of once-hot chocolate.

“Nothing says comfort like good snacks and a movie,” Dean replies.  “‘Least that’s what I think.”  He eats another handful of popcorn, then says, “Humans are good at healing, too.  We’re just slower and less precise about it.”

Cas nods, selects a single piece of popcorn, and pops it in his mouth.  He continues the process for the next five minutes.  It’s repetitive.  Reflexive.

“Sam thinks—”  Dean pauses, running his tongue over his lip.  “I think, too, that you need, um.”  Dean rubs the back of his neck.  “Control.  You need to feel in control of something.”

“And what do you and Sam suggest I take control of?”

“Me.”

Cas keeps casually munching on popcorn a piece at a time like this isn’t the dynamic-changing conversation it is.  “So I would come to you like you already come to me when you need to ‘fight’?” Cas says.  “I would come find you when I want to skip ahead to the part where I’ve already won?”

“Yeah,” says Dean, grinning, “but it’s not like I’m losing a damn thing in this arrangement.”

“We’ll need a series of safewords,” Cas continues nonchalantly around the hummingbirds in his chest.

“What’s wrong with ‘Poughkeepsie?’” Dean asks.  “It’s worked when we wanted to tap out before.”

“Nothing’s wrong with it, but after earlier, when things got so…”  Cas stops, searching for an adequate word.

“Intense?” Dean suggests.

“Yes.  I’d like to have a way to check in with you in the future, make sure you aren’t being pushed too far.”

“...You been reading up on this, too, haven’t you?”

Cas smiles behind his mug.  “Maybe.”

A few minutes later, Dean asks,“But you’re feelin' better, sweetheart?” and Cas forgets which system controls the speed of his pulse.

He turns his head slowly to look at Dean, but Dean is still watching the movie.  He sets his mug down on the middle cushion next to the popcorn bowl.  Cas tilts his head, squints his eyes, trying to see the whole picture.  “Much,” he says, and watches the self-satisfied smile that grows on Dean’s face.  “Dean?”

“Mmhmm?”

“You just called me ‘sweetheart’.”

Dean chokes on his popcorn, but doesn’t deny what he’s said.

“It is my understanding,” Cas says, crossing his arms over his chest, “that 'sweetheart' is a pet name used between individuals in a loving relationship.  I was under the impression that this—the sparring, the sex—was just something you needed.”

Dean’s head snaps to look over at Cas.  "You thought...  You thought I was using you?" he says in a horrified tone.

“No, I didn’t think that, at all,” he tells Dean reassuringly.  “But I didn't know you had feelings for me."  When Dean says nothing, he asks, “Do you have feelings for me?”

Dean begins to blush like he had when he mentioned making hot chocolate.   _Interesting._

"You put me back together,” Dean replies when he finally remembers how words work.  “You already know."

Cas shakes his head.  "I know your past.  I know all the scars you bear, both in and out.  I know your soul.  But I didn't know your heart,” he says, reaching over the popcorn to take Dean’s hand.  He laces their fingers together, and it’s just like all the movies Cas has been compulsively watching make it out to be.

It isn’t Grace, and there’s no spellwork, but there is magic in their entwined hands.

“When I built you, I didn't know to look.  I'm human now, Dean, and while I may hate it most of the time, it’s given me perspective.”  Cas puts his other hand over their set, mismatched like the furniture.  “I'm beginning to understand all of these emotions that I've been struggling with since we became friends.  Since we became a family."

Dean stares at Cas like he’s praying and hoping his thoughts are still audible.  He’s tense all over, stunned silent.  His mouth keeps twitching like he wants to talk, but can’t figure out how.

Cas arches an eyebrow in curiosity.  He pulls their held hands over his direction until Dean’s arm is outstretched.  Cas trails his top hand up Dean’s arms to the light bruises his fingers left earlier.  He maneuvers his hands to fit and presses slightly.

Dean’s eyes flutter close.  He relaxes.   _Very interesting._

“Dean,” Castiel says like they’re still in the bedroom, like he’s still in control, like he’s the one leading the way.  He tightens his grip, and feels lightning in his veins when Dean quietly moans.  “Tell me, Dean,” Castiel says, releasing his grip on Dean’s arm.  “Tell me how you feel.”

“ _Fucking hell,_ Cas,” Dean says.  “How the hell do you just turn that on and off?  You’re all cute and vulnerable like a goddamn baby bird and then just…  Dom out of nowhere.”

“You’re prevaricating,” Cas says before kissing each of his fingerprints on Dean’s arm.

“You’re _confusing me.”_

“And your feelings?” asks Cas, sitting back on the couch.  “Do those confuse you, too?”

“‘s part of being human,” Dean says with a shrug.  “We hardly ever know what we want.  But I know that I…  I want you,” Dean finally whispers.  “I need you, I…”  He swallows a word that’s too hard to say but desperately wants to come out.   _“I need you,_ Castiel.”

Cas strokes Dean’s thumb with his, doing his utmost not to grin like a fool.

“How do you feel about me?” Dean asks shyly, at last.

“I feel that there are approximately four hundred square inches too many between us,” Castiel replies.  “Also a popcorn bowl.”

“I wanna kiss you,” Dean says in a rush.

“Please do,” says Cas, just as breathless.

Dean scrambles over the divide, mug tumbling and spilling, popcorn flying.  Cas has a lapful of Dean, arms full of Dean, a heart full of Dean.  Dean holds Cas’ face between his hands and smiles against his mouth, and he’s giggling and their teeth are clicking together and it’s nothing like the movies.

It’s better.

They find a rhythm eventually.  They figure out how their lips fit together.  Dean grumbles about Cas needing Chapstick.  Cas grips the back of his neck and he groans instead.  They melt into each other, retracing all the paths their hands have already walked, relearning all the places they’ve already studied.

The chocolate seeps into the couch underneath them, a dark wet spot that will surely have stained by morning.

Neither of them care about sitting in it.

 

**Author's Note:**

> The accompanying photoset for this story can be found [here](http://shiphitsthefan.tumblr.com/post/118670099684/negotiating-the-spot-by-shiphitsthefan-6-5k). If you liked this story, I would greatly appreciate your reblogging it.
> 
> You can find me on my [tumblr](http://shiphitsthefan.tumblr.com/). I also chirp occasionally witty things on [twitter](https://twitter.com/shiphitsthefan).
> 
> Kudos and comments validate my existence. <3


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